ARLINGTON, Texas — Trades, slides and milestones — no one could have predicted this. The 2018 NFL draft was eye-opening in several respects, and here's a rundown of the big takeaways you need to know.

1. We shouldn’t have been surprised, but even the NFL draft is bigger in Texas. And it was classic Jerry Jones: flashy and made for television. This was the first draft held inside an NFL stadium, and the atmosphere — especially during the first round — was fantastic.

2. The league will decide at the owners meetings in May where the next two drafts will be staged. What we’ve learned from the past two years in Philly (on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art) and North Texas (at AT&T Stadium) is that the host city has the opportunity to show off its local flavor. We’d love to see the event held at the Pro Football Hall of Fame or on a snowy April day in Denver.

3. The trolling of Cowboys fans was one of the most entertaining aspects of this draft — karma that was due after Drew Pearson’s epic rant a year ago in Philadelphia. Among those who took shots at Cowboys Nation over the weekend were former NFL players like David Akers, Jerry Kramer, Justin Tuck, Merton Hanks, Michael Vick and even Chris Canty — a former Dallas draft pick who showed off the Super Bowl ring he won with the Giants.

4. As if the Cowboys-Eagles rivalry needed more juice, Philadelphia traded ahead of Dallas in the second round to take TE Dallas Goedert — yes, his name is Dallas — just hours after news leaked that Jason Witten would retire.

5. The one thing that would have made the appearance of Akers, a longtime Eagles kicker, even better as he announced the Goedert pick is if he'd done it while wearing a full Mummers costume, a la C Jason Kelce at the Philadelphia Super Bowl parade.

7. But the biggest lesson from Allen’s Twitter fiasco — when racially offensive posts he wrote while in high school surfaced 24 hours before the draft — isn’t just about being careful on social media. It’s that tweeting racial slurs, even in reference to song lyrics or in what you think is a joke between friends, is never OK. Teams and media are watching.

8. It's notable that the only team to speak to Allen directly about the tweets Thursday (rather than just calling his agent) was the Buffalo Bills, who traded up to take him at No. 7.

9. Allen handled questions about the tweets well. Now he has to answer to his new teammates. But here’s the silver lining: At least no one was asking about his 56% completion percentage at Wyoming.

10. Perhaps the luckiest team in the first round was the New York Jets, who made their bold move to trade up from No. 6 to No. 3 weeks ago without any certainty about which quarterbacks would be available. Maybe the Jets did love Baker Mayfield, but they wound up with Sam Darnold — who was the closest thing to a consensus top quarterback in this class.

11. Still, the most intriguing quarterback move of the first round might have been the last one, with the Ravens trading back in to take Lamar Jackson at No. 32. Hell of a way for Ozzie Newsome to put an exclamation point on his final Round 1 selection.

12. Newsome, a Hall of Fame tight end, took 12 players in his final draft, a haul that included Jackson, two tight ends, two wide receivers, three offensive linemen, two defensive backs, one linebacker and one defensive end.

13. Adding Jackson means the Ravens now have two Heisman Trophy-winning quarterbacks on the roster. And Joe Flacco. (The Ravens signed Robert Griffin III earlier this year.)

14. Jackson’s arrival surely seems likely to hasten the end of Flacco’s tenure in Baltimore. Flacco, whose contract runs through 2021, has no guaranteed money left in his contract after 2018, and the team has a potential out after 2019.

16. Will there be another changing of the guard in the AFC North aside from Baltimore? The Steelers look like they’ve finally drafted a player capable of eventually replacing Ben Roethlisberger in third-round pick Mason Rudolph.

17. Leighton Vander Esch had the swankiest ride to visit his new team. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones sent his helicopter to pick up the first-round linebacker Friday and fly him to The Star in Frisco for his introductory press conference.

18. But Vander Esch’s ride wasn’t even the best helicopter story of the draft. That belongs to Bradley Chubb’s older brother Brandon, a linebacker with the Detroit Lions, who practiced in Michigan on Thursday morning, then took a flight to Dallas, where he hired a chopper to fly him to AT&T Stadium. He landed 25 minutes before the draft opened.

19. The underrated move of Round 1 came when the Steelers traded troubled WR Martavis Bryant to Oakland. That gives the Raiders a new receiving corps of Amari Cooper, Jordy Nelson and Bryant just in time to compete in a division that no longer includes CBs Aqib Talib and Marcus Peters.

20. When Raiders coach Jon Gruden said at the combine that he wanted to take the game back to 1998, we thought he was talking about the pre-analytics era. But with the addition of Bryant, who has served multiple marijuana-related suspensions, and former LSU pass rusher Arden Key, who reportedly went to rehab for marijuana last year, Gruden is taking the Silver & Black back to its bad boy roots.

21. These are high-risk, high-reward moves for the Raiders, who need to surround franchise players Derek Carr and Khalil Mack with better talent.

22. Maybe this sends a wake-up call to Baton Rouge, given LSU's two best players in this draft, Key and RB Derrius Guice, both plummeted because of off-field concerns.

23. The Browns took RB Nick Chubb early in the second round. They essentially spent $17 million on the pick when they acquired it along with QB Brock Osweiler last year. Osweiler didn't make Cleveland's roster, and the Browns paid more than $15 million of his salary this year while he played for the Broncos.

24. Browns GM John Dorsey isn’t afraid of taking players with serious character flags. In his first draft with Cleveland, Dorsey picked Florida WR Antonio Callaway, who reportedly failed a drug test at the combine, was suspended in 2017 for alleged involvement in credit card fraud and was investigated in 2016 for sexual battery. (Dorsey, while the general manager of the Chiefs, in 2016 drafted Tyreek Hill, who pleaded guilty to a domestic violence charge.)

25. Indianapolis Colts QB Andrew Luck has to love that two of general manager Chris Ballard’s first three picks were guards, including first rounder Quenton Nelson. It’s a shame that previous GM Ryan Grigson didn’t do this years ago, before Luck missed a season and a half with injuries.

26. One-handed LB Shaquem Griffin was already going to be the feel-good story of the draft, but somehow it got even better when it was the Seattle Seahawks who picked him. Griffin now reunites with twin Shaquill, a cornerback drafted by the Seahawks last year.

27. Look for Griffin to contribute immediately as a special teamer with the potential to become a special player as an outside linebacker lined up next to Bobby Wagner in Pete Carroll’s defense.

28. It's easy to love the Patriots’ pick of Georgia RB Sony Michel at No. 31, especially after they lost Dion Lewis in free agency. But it totally didn’t fit Bill Belichick’s style to use that high of a pick on a tailback. The last time the Patriots used a first rounder on a running back? Laurence Maroney in 2006.

29. Clear message from John Elway in Denver that the Broncos are building around Case Keenum. Elway passed on Allen and fellow QB Josh Rosen, taking offensive players (WR Courtland Sutton and RB Royce Freeman) with his first two picks on Friday.

30. The Texans had to wait until the third round to make their first pick, and it was an interesting one: Stanford S Justin Reid — you know, the younger brother of fellow S Eric Reid, who is currently unemployed after protesting during the national anthem for the past two seasons. Houston owner Bob McNair has been one of the most ardent supporters of President Trump.

31. Don’t look now, but the Chargers are quietly assembling a seriously dangerous defensive lineup after drafting S Derwin James in the first round. He seems like a perfect fit for a Gus Bradley scheme and could fill the Kam Chancellor role in the secondary. His oversized personality should play well in the Los Angeles market as well.

32. How much did Orlando Brown Jr.’s disastrous combine cost him? The Oklahoma tackle, once seen as a potential first-round pick, fell to the third round, where he was drafted by the Ravens. Brown likely isn’t concerned about his slide now, not after he landed in Baltimore, where his father, Orlando “Zeus” Brown, once starred. “I’m coming home,” Brown Jr., tweeted Friday night.

33. It was always a long shot that Raiders GM Reggie McKenzie would draft his son, fellow Tennessee Volunteer Kahlil McKenzie. But having him land with AFC West rival Kansas City (with pick No. 198) should make for some awkward family dinners.

34. Through a series of trades, the Patriots flipped the second-round pick (No. 43) they received from the 49ers in the Jimmy Garoppolo deal into four more selections. New England made four total trades during the second day of the draft. It was impressive maneuvering by Belichick, though it makes it tough to make a true assessment of what the Patriots got in return for Garoppolo.

35. The NFL should keep making the gimmicks for the third-day selections even more ridiculous — if only to further infuriate NFL Network draft guru Mike Mayock. After picks were delivered this year via parrot (in Tampa), by a mascot in a Speedo at a Mexican restaurant (in Denver) and by fans on a flatbed Ford in Winslow, Ariz., (for the Cardinals), may we suggest that at least one 2019 pick be delivered by Challenger the bald eagle, while dive bombing the NFL Network set.

36. What a time to be a specialist. Four punters were drafted in the span of 24 picks in the fifth round. This draft also saw two kickers selected, and even one long snapper.

37. Interesting move late in the draft, with the Rams sending former first-round pick Tavon Austin to the receiver-needy Cowboys for a sixth rounder. Don’t expect Austin to replace Dez Bryant. Instead, Jason Garrett and his staff need to find a way to highlight Austin’s speed and versatility, perhaps as a gadget player and hybrid receiver-running back.

38. Dorsey could quality for a job in the CIA after the way he kept his love of Mayfield under wraps until the final hours before the draft, with most analysts and teams assuming Cleveland would choose Darnold or Allen. That mystery, fed by Dorsey’s silence, made this one of the most anticipated first rounds in years.

39. Mayfield fueled his stellar college career by being the underdog after walking on at both Texas Tech and Oklahoma. Now he’ll have to find a new motivation, knowing that the Browns wanted him more than any other player.

40. The Patriots must not be worried about 40-year-old QB Tom Brady’s plans — in 2018 or beyond. At least that’s the takeaway after Belichick passed on rookie quarterbacks until finally taking Danny Etling with the first pick in the seventh round.

Former Green Bay Packers player Jerry Kramer and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell pose with Iowa's Josh Jackson after Jackson was selected by the Packers during the second round of the draft. Eric Gay, AP